


Always

by DrusillaStanden



Category: Harper Connelly Series - Charlaine Harris
Genre: F/M, Mention of domestic abuse (related to the found body), Mention of suicide (a body Harper found)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 16:12:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrusillaStanden/pseuds/DrusillaStanden
Summary: I've not seen much if any Harper fanfic and nothing with Tolliver. Felt like a gap. This is just a little incident. A day in the life, as it were. I might write more. We'll see if I get inspired or if literally anyone else is in this fandom!





	Always

There was a fist coming towards my face. My brother had a temper sometimes. And thank God. Thank God his reflexes were just as quick as that temper because right away, before I’d even had time to flinch, his hand had intercepted the fist and was forcing it down and away from me. He turned to me now, his face a calm mask. You’d have to know him as well as I did to see exactly how tense his jaw was, how violence was banked down in the depths of his eyes.

‘You alright, Honey?’ he asked, his eyes resting on my face, the gaze intent, questioning. My brother, when he pays attention, it's like there’s nothing else in the world to look at but you.

‘Yeah,’ I said, a little breathy, I’ll admit. And I wasn’t, not really. My heart was still racing, adrenaline had been sent pumping through my veins. Tolliver’s hand squeezed a little harder on the fist he was still pulling up this asshole’s back. I smiled. Most of the time, I felt like I didn’t have to tell my brother much of anything. We’d known each other a long time. It wasn’t mind-reading but there wasn’t a lot we could hide from each other either.

‘Well,’ said Tolliver looked down with a little distaste at the greasy blond guy he was currently restraining, ‘I think you owe Miss Connelly an apology.’

The little rat was mad as fire. He wasn’t the first and he wouldn’t be the last, I realised with a sigh, that would object to what I did or, more precisely in this case, the fact that I was paid for it. The number of people who change their minds when I don’t tell them the answer they want to hear... This guy, Walter Ringham was the name he’d given, had given me bad vibes from the start. He’d turned up at the cemetery in a shiny new Lexus, wearing an ostentatious piece of tailoring which managed to make him look like a dealer rather than the business wizard he obviously considered himself to be. He’d given our decidedly average car a onceover with distaste, a distaste that hadn’t moved an inch off his face when he saw us.

Now, we’re not a bad-looking pair, if I say so myself. We have similar colouring, too pale skin and black hair. Mine is shorter than Tolliver’s now; he’s growing it out. I told him I liked it long. He was rocking some designer stubble at the moment as well. He changes his look all the time and he’d just gone through a period with a beard. I wasn’t sad to see the back of it. Not when I was in such close proximity to it so often these days… We were both tall and stringy and dressed casually in rain jackets, jeans and boots. We weren’t winning any beauty prizes (although Tolliver was a handsome guy and he swears blind I’m beautiful) or passing unnoticed in any fancy circles but there was nothing to object to. As I said, this guy was giving asshole vibes off right from the get go.

He’d wanted a read on his wife’s grave. She’d been found at the bottom of a ravine. She’d had all the walking gear with her and the coroner had called in a verdict of accidental death but Walter hadn’t believed it. He said she wasn’t a walker and he’d done it with a sneer which had done nothing to endear him to me. Like he was a walker! His face wasn’t the face of a man who hiked in the woods, it was the face of a man who preferred more sedentary pursuits, sedentary pursuits which, by the look of him, involved drinking. And I knew the look. I’d grown up with parents who’d slid down the slope from lawyer to crack addicts and my mum had taken us with her, to the broken-down trailer, to the man whose son had killed my sister, to the place I’d got hit by the lightning that gave me this strange ability and the place that’d given me my brother. Tolliver. Although I should really stop thinking of him as brother now things were so different. Now he wasn’t just my step-brother, he was my husband, my lover, the love of my life, everything… But my brain still called him brother; it was an engrained response

Walter’d come up with a theory which involved plots and murder and revenge. He sounded paranoid as hell. The easy explanation was a fall but he’d convinced himself there was more to the story and that some business enemy was behind it… Well, she sure hadn’t died a natural death but she hadn’t been killed either. This woman was a suicide. I’d stood over her bones and I’d seen those last moments and, it’d been a weird feeling. Normally, the death is a form of trauma but this woman…as she fell, she’d felt free, she’d had some terrible approximation of happy. Which just goes to show what a piece of shit Walter really was. He was a city-slicker type who obviously thought money bought everything. He had his nice car, and his shitty suit and, no doubt, a swanky house but he was a mean drunk. That gas-lighting abusive son of a bitch had made her life hell. I’d felt it for a few seconds before I’d replayed the fall and the impact and I’ve rarely felt so angry in my life. I’ve been doing this for a while now and I don’t react the way a lot of people want me too. You see enough death, it becomes a form of routine although that isn’t the right word. I can’t go mourning over every death I see, every tragedy, every bit of pain, despair and hopelessness. But this woman had been driven to such despair by this sack of shit that her death had felt like freedom.

He didn’t like it when I told him.

He liked it so little he hadn’t believed me and he’d gone for the punch and my brother, my Tolliver, had stopped him. So here we were in an all too familiar tableau. Thankfully, Tolliver had gone straight to the bank to cash the check. We had a routine with the ones that looked a little shifty… while I did the job, Tolliver cashed the check. But for right now, we had to deal with this guy before we could get away, go to the hotel and enjoy a little rest from the road…and some other activities. He wasn’t going to apologise it seemed because he actually hissed at me.

‘That bitch is making up lies about me,’ he snapped.

Now, if there’s one thing my brother doesn’t like, it’s people insulting me. His grip got just a little tighter. His face was still, a professional mask and his voice considered with a flat intensity that sends shivers up your back. ‘You got the service you asked for. My sis…wife read the grave for you. She told you the cause of death. My sister does not lie. You attempted to assault her for doing the job you paid her to do.’

‘She’s lying.’

‘Why would I lie?’ I asked wearily. ‘I don’t know you from Adam. I don’t care about your or…whoever you think is after you. Your wife jumped. End of story. There’s no conspiracy. You’re just a shitty human being.’

I turned to Tolliver and he raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Let’s go, Tolliver,’ I said, indicating the car.

‘Sure, hon,’ said Tolliver. He was still itching for a fight, I could see it. People who preyed on the weak, who destroyed the ones they said they loved… they made his skin crawl. They made our skin crawl. But he wasn’t going to pick one. ‘We’re leaving,’ he said stonily, letting Walter go with a little unnecessary but deeply satisfying force. Walter stood there panting as we walked away, Tolliver’s arm wrapped round my waist.

But Walter wasn’t going to let it go. He was a weaselly little coward though and he left it till we were at a distance large enough for safety. ‘Lying Bitch!’ he shouted. My brother turned, took two steps (old Walter really hadn’t noticed how long Tolliver’s stride was) and clocked him in the face. He dropped like a rock but it only took him a moment to come around, groggily clutching his jaw. Tolliver’s fists were clenched but he turned away with a look of disgust and walked back to me. With his arm back where it belonged around my waist, we went back to the car.

We were both tense, a little keyed up.

‘You alright,’ he asked, solicitous.

‘Yeah, yeah, I am. You?’ I replied.

He held up a hand ruefully, the skin on his knuckles was broken. ‘Yeah, pretty much.’

I turned his hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. ‘My hero,’ I said lightly. And he was. Not just for defending me but for being the type of guy whose fists clenched when he heard about a woman being mistreated, about anyone being mistreated. Tolliver had never dealt well with anyone picking on those weaker than them – man, woman or child. Right now, he rested his head back for a second.

‘Asshole,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ I replied. He got the car started and I put in an audio book and we drove the hour to our motel on the interstate. We had another job tomorrow and we’d chosen a motel between the two.

It was getting on for dinner time and we should have been thinking about where to eat but right now we had a lot of adrenaline and emotion to work off, which had just been percolating as we drove back here. As soon as we were through the door, it was closed behind me and I was pushed against it. Tolliver was kissing me with a hunger that reflected my own – ravenous. We paused and he rested his forehead on mine for a second. ‘You’re wonderful,’ he said. ‘What you do…what you are…’

‘Right back at ya,’ I gasped before pulling him into the kiss.

‘Always,’ he whispered in my ear as he pulled me with him towards the bed.

‘Always,’ I echoed.

Always.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment. If you're enjoying it or just want to see more Harper and Tolliver, give me a shout.


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